In about 1868,
William Torrey Harris,
Wanted to teach the great.
He instituted early efforts in schools,
To reach his goal, now and forever,
To educate the gifted,
And make them even more clever.

In about 1901,
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
Teachers opened the first school,
Specifically for gifted students.

In about 1954,
Ann Isaacs was really not a bore.
It was under her leadership that it was founded,
An association that propounded.
The association was therefore called,
The National Association of Gifted Children, one and all.

In about 1972,
The Marland Report was issued to schools,
T’was the first formal meaning,
Of giftedness and it’s teaching.
Teachers were strongly encouraged,
To define it broadly, with courage.
With academic, intellectual, and leadership achieving,
Visual and performing,
Arts, creative and productive thinking,
Gifted people were diagnosed,
And the teachers became engrossed,
In teaching them the most.

In about 1974,
The Office of the Gifted and Talented was given a status,
Like never before.
Finally it was,
Made to be official,
The Office of G&T;,
Was now more beneficial.

In about 1988,
Congress passed,
The Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act.
This was a rather large part,
Something that was just right smart,
Of the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

In about 1990,
The National Research Center for Gifted and Talented,
Was established.
At the University of Connecticut it was located,
And it was also associated,
With the included researchers, none named Prinia,
At the Unis of Georgia, Yale, and Virginia,

My dreams come
In different shapes.
And different sizes.
In different colors.
And different disguises.

My dreams come
Sporadically.
Inconsistently.
Without rhyme.
Without reason.
Random.

My dreams come
When I wake.
When I sleep.
In the day.
In the night.
When I read.
And when I write.

My dreams come.
And my dreams go.
But in my heart
I know,
My future is my own.

I am intelligent and linguistic.
I wonder about space.
I hear clear silence.
I see shapes in clouds.
I want to write stories.

I am intelligent and linguistic.
I pretend to be happy to clean things.
I feel as if I could fly.
I touch the sky.
I worry for the world.
I cry for people dying for no reason.

I am intelligent and linguistic.
I understand that no one is perfect.
I say everything is equal.
I dream of a better world.
I try to be better.
I hope for the future.

I am intelligent and linguistic.

I am from books.
From stain remover and paper towels.
From the “golf course lawn.”
(Perfectly manicured,
not a blade out of place.)
I am from forget-me-nots.
From the olive trees and oleander bushes.
The poisonous green leaves,
And the fruit ripe for painting.

I am from themed Christmas trees and chilli on Halloween.
From Nina and Dulce.
I am from eating dinner in the living room,
Making nicknames for television characters,
And waking up to shower and go back to sleep for a while.

I am from “one bite, one bite” and “Yellow Submarine.”
From a new color for Lamba on Easter.
From Walnut Creek and Europe.
I am from lentil loaf and sausage casserole.
From mango juice on the hallway carpet,
poured out thick and pulpy with a wet “thump”.

A box of great grandma’s jewelry,
Sitting atop my dresser,
Waiting to be worn out on the town once again.

I have an insatiable curiosity.
I am able to run my mind on multiple tracks at the same time.
I learn rapidly.
I retain what learn.
I tend to be very independent.
I like to refine and improve others’ innovations.
I feel comfortable with a wide range of emotions.
I’m too serious, some think.
I have always been interested in social reform.
I value and defend diversity.
I have a strong need to make a difference.
I ignore my own needs for the sake of others.

I am gifted

I am a student,
Born and raised in public education.
I am smart,
In my own right and my own way.
And I am capable,
If only I had the means and opportunity.

So how dare you tell me with ADHD
That I should “keep my body still” and “use my inside voice.”
I am trying to listen, I am trying to learn, but you aren’t trying to hear me!
Why can’t you see that my body just needs to be free?

How dare you tell me that I can read
When I can’t tell the difference between b, d, q, and p.
If you could see the world like me, it would be pictures, not symbols
Dancing across the page, why can’t they all just stop?

How dare you tell me that it’s my mother’s fault
When I fail the test or don’t do my homework.
She’s working three jobs to put food on the table,
I see how hard she works, don’t you?

How dare you tell me that we’re all the same
When the sounds you make aren’t the sounds of my father,
And I can’t hear when my sounds aren’t yours,
Can’t you see that I’m working twice as hard?

How dare you tell me that I “just need to try harder,”
When I can’t remember why is nine plus zero is nine, and nine plus one is ten,
But nine times one is nine, and nine times zero is nothing.
Are you living in a different world than me? Does two plus two ever equal three?

How dare you tell me that I just “need to focus.”
How can I analyze Shakespeare, when all I think is “hungry?”
How can I “solve for x”, when I’m adding up the money for my brother’s next meal?
Can’t you hear my stomach grumbling?

How dare you tell me that I can’t succeed
You can’t see my future. All you see are
The holes in my shoes and the stain on my shirt,
Why does money define me? Can’t you see the forest through all the trees?

How dare you tell me that I won’t make it.
Where I sleep may change like the wind but poverty is not a sin
And the love in my family is my home,
Why do you assume that we can’t win?

How dare you tell me that I need to calm down.
My rage is a tool of survival, I’ve waged more wars
Than you can count, dealing with this life is a battle.
Can you see an end in sight, aren’t you be the one supposed to save me?

I am a student,
Put on a path in public education.
And I am smart,
Regardless of what people say about me.
And I am capable,
I find my means and opportunity.

And I dare you to ever think any differently.

I am free, I will shout from rooftops,
I will dance on the clouds in the sky,
I hop, I skip, I twirl about,
“Now at last I can die!”

I leap onto stars in graceful flight,
I now have tiny, little lights to give,
I bathe in sun on warm summer days,
“Now at last I can live!”

Barking and scratching, stirring up trouble,
Teddy and Simon have spirit to spare.
They’re playful and lively, and full of fun,
I only wish they hadn’t as much hair.

Even though they aren’t the scariest pair,
They feign being fierce in true tradition.
Despite that they can’t see what is out there,
They bark and growl as if on a mission.

Teddy and Simon have one ambition,
To be the loudest in all the complex.
They bark and howl at all that pass by us,
Even against the strangest of objects.

Teddy and Simon, my very best buds,
Even though some rainfall is to them, floods.

It’s slow at first.
Quiet and shy.

I’m tired.
She says.
All of the time.

Well, that’s normal.
I say.
Get to bed earlier.
Sleep in on the weekends.

No.
She says.
Definitive.
Absolute.
You don’t understand.
I should’ve known.
I shouldn’t’ve come.

She stands.
She turns to the door.

Wait.
I say.
Tell me.

No.
She says.
I have to go.

Why?

Because.
I’m tired.

She turns again.

Where are you going?
I ask.

She walks to the door.

To sleep.
She says.

When will you be back?
I ask.

I don’t know.
She says.


She doesn’t look at me,
As she leaves.
She melts into the grey,
Beyond the hill.
She vanishes,
Forever.
Never to be seen again.

I would be completely unpredictable,
If I was not merely trying to save face
And make light of a bad situation.

If I was given a fighting chance,
I may have found success in the same days
As they that may say that they never
Blurred the lines or copied elements.

The documents of that common convention
I was cheated by say that I was, and that's fine.
I do not want to face the bad
Said during these brief encounters.

He was quoted as saying that
I would be completely unpredictable,
If not for that common convention.

Hon,

First it was, “I love you, Honey,”
When, at first, we wed.
I told it to you constantly,
It was eloquently said.

Then it was: “Love you, Honey,”
After a month or two or so.
I called it everyday to you,
That I loved you, you did know.

Next I bid you “Honey”
Before I would go out.
You knew it meant “I love you,”
The words you went without.

Now it has been shortened more,
Bitten down to quick,
I’ll tell you “Hon” forever now,
Even when I’m sick.

~ Dear

On May the twelfth of nineteen forty-two,
A project was started by Franklin D.
A plan was penned to make the bombs we threw,
On Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The bombs were named after a boy and man,
One of them little and one of them fat.
Both of them made by project, Manhattan,
No one can guess why they named them like that.

The project was held in three locations,
Hanford, Los Al’mos, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
And with sci’ntists from three diff’rent nations,
The US, Great Britain, and Canad-ee.

The bombs that ended the second world war,
Began as the scientists’ idea.
They didn’t see then the fam’lies they tore,
They didn’t hear the “Ave Maria.”

The project was kept top secret for fear,
Of Germans, Japan, and all the Russians.
That all those countries’ spies would steal and hear
Their newfound ideas and discussions.

The morning of August six, forty-five,
The Japanese city, Hiroshima.
People awoke with no thought to their lives,
Just after battle in Iwo Jima.

Little Boy fell, over nine thousand pounds,
Plopped from B-29 Enola Gay.
Pilot Paul Tibbets in far above bounds,
Dropped Little Boy to heed orders that day.

The Fat Man fell just a few days later,
August ninth on city, Nagasaki.
A bomb of this force, made by traitor,
Not so, it’s made by those from Milwaukee.

Thousands of pounds of explosive power,
Tens times efficiency of one before.
Dropped on a village within an hour,
Explosion, explosion upon the shore.

By Robert Oppenheimer it was led,
With help from General Leslie R. Groves.
They felt great regret for all that were dead,
Those people they killed in shadowy droves.

This is,
A quick attempt at sketching the overall picture,
A collection of existing material,
Summarizing the essential characteristics,
And offering a novel interpretation of
The “self-actualizing personality.”
And the gifts,
That set them apart,
And that are underutilized,

They are,
Misunderstood,
And underestimated,
By peers,
By society,
And by themselves.

The gifted rarely fulfill,
Their full creative potential.
This is particularly true,
For gifted women,
They don’t fit stereotypes,
Society has,
Either of women,
Or the gifted:
Typically seen as men.

The highly gifted are rare,
In the population.
Those with IQ’s,
Of 150 and above,
Occur five to seven times,
Per ten thousand.
They are never quite sure,
If it is good,
Or bad,
To be very bright.
It is difficult,
For average persons,
To identify,
With their gifted counterparts’
Superior cognitive abilities.
If feedback is internalized,
A self-conception,
May be constructed,
Based on underrating the self.

They are experiencing in a higher key.

Houseflies always buzz,
In the key of F.

Sometimes people come across,
As something different than they are.

A woman attending Clark,
Didn’t think she was smart.
But that was proved untrue,
With her one sixty-five I.Q.

There is No Child Left Behind,
But what is there for children already ahead.

Thomas Edison, holder of a thousand patents,
Was once called stupid by a teacher.

If I ever die, I’d like it to be,
In late March. That way, I’ll have
Winter to go with me, and
I’ll leave the world warm.

In New York, one person’s job is,
To check all the musical instruments,
And make sure they’re in tune.

Jane loves her books.
She’s not all that into looks.

Thomas isn’t a big fan of words.
He wants to fly like the birds.

Jane doesn’t know the ways of the world.
Over her head the connotations swirled.

Thomas has prime common sense.
He doesn’t find the onslaught as intense.

Jane likes to play the violin.
She prefers her soft music to the din.

Thomas doesn’t enjoy the classical.
He feels it was written to be fantastical.

Jane is overwhelmed by the bedlam.
People understanding her is seldom.

Thomas explains the world to Jane.
He helps her see through all her pain.

Jane shows Thomas the world she sees.
The shine of the sunset behind the trees.

Thomas wants to live in the world of Jane’s creation.
Too bad for him, to her realm, there is no train station.

Soapy, soapy, bubbles in the water.
Dishes lined right up all along the sink,
Ev’ry one lined up and starting to stink.
Dishes made long ago by a potter,
And a sponge floating ‘round like a yachter.
Washing all the dishes, quick as a wink.
Do not take all too long to stew and think.
Turn on the faucet and make it hotter.
Dishes are covered with water and soap,
Scrubbed away is all the dirt and the grime,
Along with all of the finishing hope,
Washed down the drain like a student’s spare time.
Now rinsed and racked upon every *****,
Dish dryer for hire, pays not a dime.

A loose bolt
In a complete machine.
No sins forgiven,
Without the shadow belittling me,
The shadow won’t let me be.

I am colorblind
But it’s spinning
Perfect blue buildings
And debilitated feelings.

Inside my head,
I’m counting crows,
It’s raining,
In every town,
When I’m around,
I’m a stranger.

I take apart
The very heart
With the water calling,
And the light
will set me free.
Watch me as I fall,
And always remember me.